A retrospective radiological study on the morphometry of hand digits and phalanges: role in sex determination

Abstract

Background: Forensic identification of dismembered or fragmented human remains is important following mass disasters. Sex determination is fundamental in narrowing down the pool of possible victims. Aim and Objectives: This study aimed at determining the accuracy of correct sex prediction using the radiological lengths of hand digits and phalanges of adult Nigerians. Material and Methods: In this retrospective cross-sectional study, the lengths of the digits and phalanges were measured on 280 (170 males and 110 females) unpaired hand radiographs archived in the Radiology Departments of two Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria. Ethics approval was obtained from the Institutions' Research committee. Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 22 was used to analyse the data. Independent 't' test was used for gender comparisons in the mean lengths while discriminant function analysis was used to determine the percentage accuracy for correct sex allocation. Value of p < 0.05 was considered as the level of significance. Results: Male hands had significantly longer digits and phalanges compared to those of females on both sides (p £ 0.05). The digit and phalanx with high accuracies of sex determination were D2 (90%), DP2 (74.2%) and D1 (68.5%), PP1 (85%) on the right and left hand correspondingly. Collectively, using all the digits (95%) and DP (72.9%) of the right hand as well as digits (80.7%) and PP (78.6%) of the left hand provided high accuracies. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that the phalanges of the hand digits could be used with other sexual dimorphic parameters to aid in sex determination in our studied population.

Keywords

• phalanges
• digits
• hand
• sex
• determination